Your
friendship and your concern for our work mean a great, great deal to us.

This has
been a remarkably challenging year for just about everyone, but thanks
to you, our work has continued uninterrupted.

Life has
never been easy in western Alaska, and with high fuel prices that are
frozen until next summer — up to $10 a gallon in some villages — our
mission’s signal is one bright element, a beacon of faith and hope.

Many
times, we’ve been contacted by listeners who wanted to thank us for
“holding them together” during difficult times.

In turn,
we thank you.As we reflect
on the bumps in the road we’ve encountered during 2008, we thank you for
keeping our signal strong, positive, helpful, and above all,
inspirational.

May your
New Year be filled with many of God’s blessings.Thank you!

FAMILY:(left)KNOM public
affairs director Laureli Kinneen’s children Joe and Sidney love visiting
the station after school.
Here, they’re joined by Laureli’s husband Fen, who is a bush pilot for
Nome-based Bering Air.

Fen was
available for the photo that day, as his charter flight to Provideniya,
Russia, was delayed by weather.

FINANCIAL REPORT:This past year, you have rescued us time and again.Our late bishop, Michael Kaniecki, SJ, once remarked that it’s
important for us to always remain a little hungry, so that we appreciate
what we are given, and words do fail when we try to express our
appreciation to you.

We renew
our pledge to you that we will continue to operate our mission as
frugally as possible.

Since we
are more than 500 miles from the nearest highway, all supplies are
brought to Nome by oceangoing barge during the brief summer, and by air
the rest of the year.Thus,
the high cost of energy affects the cost of everything in Nome.

The
electric bill for our 25,000 Watt transmitter is 65% higher than it was
just three years ago.The
cost of heating our studio has nearly doubled in that time.

(Left) The KNOM AM transmitter site at high noon on the shortest
day of the year, 2000.

While
energy prices are lowering in most of the United States, Nome’s gasoline
is stuck at $4.99 and heating oil/diesel fuel stands at $5.49.Those are the prices established at the time of the summer’s last
delivery.

Meanwhile,
if you’ve followed us over this past year, you’ll recall that we
suffered several unexpected financial hits.Every time, you pulled us through, and throughout, our signal of
education, information, news and especially inspiration has remained
solid and strong.Thank
you!

Our total
expenses for the year ending June 30 were $1,452,449.In these uncertain financial times, our income was less than
that, $1,227,436, and we dug into emergency savings to cover the rest.Thanks to you, we had those savings, which allowed us to continue
our service.

98.1% of
our income was from individual gifts by good people like you.

In general
terms, this is how we spent it:

25.0%non-staff-related general operating expenses

51.5%staff salaries and volunteer expenses

18.8%fundraising

4.7%newsletter

100.0%

If you
would like a detailed spreadsheet of our finances, we welcome you to
contact business manager Lynette Schmidt, who would be happy to mail or
e-mail you a copy.

KNOM PRIMER:We are the oldest Catholic radio station in the U. S., on the air
July 14, 1971.

We are
wholly owned by the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks.

Our signal
blankets 100,000 square miles, roughly the size of Vermont, New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York State and
Pennsylvania combined.
Although we are listened to as far as a thousand miles away, into
northern Canada and deep into eastern Russia, our primary service is to
Alaska Native villages.

(Left) This image, from the State of Alaska,
illustrates the state's size relative to the Lower 48.

Our signal
is immensely popular, almost certainly the most popular of any religious
station in the country, ranging from 76% to 100% of adults listening
every day, depending on the village.

We provide
many varied services.In
many of KNOM’s villages, if you are Catholic, your only option for ever
participating in a Sunday Mass is praying along with the Mass broadcast
by KNOM.Other villages may
see a priest once a month, once every two months, or once a year.

In some
villages, parishioners gather in their church and pray with the radio
broadcast.

(Left) In this photo taken in 1998, then pastor Fr. John Hinsvark
celebrates the Sacrifice of the Eucharist in Nome's St. Joseph Parish.

Our news
crew is the largest radio news department in bush Alaska.Hourly, we broadcast weather forecasts for eight forecast areas.For people contemplating travel by snowmobile or boat in this
road-less region, this is their only means of obtaining weather
information by which they choose whether or not it is safe for their
families to travel.

January:Four
memorable Bering Sea blizzards rake western Alaska.The third, on the 22nd, rips power lines off poles.For the first time in memory, visibility is officially listed as
“zero.”

As power
fails, over KNOM, Nome police chief Paul Burke urges everyone to stay
where they are.After the
storm passes, temperatures drop to the low minus twenties.General manager Ric Schmidt is out of state and Tom Busch cashes
in airline miles to make sure the transmitter site’s generator is okay —
it keeps KNOM on the air for more than five days.

(

Left)
A front end loader clears snow from the site's 400-foot driveway, and
the generator's fuel tank is filled.

February:Late in
the month, KNOM discovers that the firm which prints and mails the Nome
Static has failed to do so since December.The outfit mails the first two newsletters of the year via First
Class Mail, one and two months late, at their expense.

With
temperatures at –30º, the KNOM studio’s furnace repeatedly fails.At one point, the temperature inside the studios drops to within
twenty degrees of freezing.

This
month, the station produces and airs a two-hour program, highlighting
the area’s largest Alaska Native dance festival, filled with traditional
music and stories of the songs’ origins.

March:Nome police
request an unusual announcement, asking people to stay away from the
north side of the city’s hospital (left), where a moose and her calf
have taken up residence, probably to take a break from slogging through
deep snow.

Drifts in
places are eight and ten feet deep, and it’s a several-times-a-day job
for Ric Schmidt to dust off the mission’s satellite dishes (left).

This
month, after about 5,000 loads of laundry, the volunteer house clothes
washer fails, as volunteer Laura Davis demonstrates (left).We offer special thanks to the couple who contributed $500 for
its replacement.

April:Former chief engineer Les Brown, who now lives in urban Alaska,
flies to Nome for two weeks to ensure everything technical is
ship-shape.Les’ departure
is delayed by two days of blizzard; the same week, a second blizzard
pins down Tom Busch for a day.

(Left) An
April 2008 blizzard shuts down the town of Nome.

May: There’s more
critter news.With reindeer
fawning just north of Nome, people are cautioned to avoid them, as the
moms are strongly protective of their babies.

May and June:As
every year, for 100,000 square miles, ears are especially glued to KNOM
for river conditions and forecasts, as the station broadcasts timely
news about ice buildups and potential danger spots for spring flooding.

a few cabins. Along the mighty Yukon River,
flooding can paralyze entire villages.

June:Dense fog
shuts down the Nome airport for over seven days, forcing 28 consecutive
Alaska Airlines flights from Anchorage to overfly the town.Outgoing volunteer Kristina Proctor’s homecoming is delayed by
five days.The weather also
prevents program director Kelly Brabec from attending her sister’s
wedding.

(Left) Since all
of Nome’s groceries arrive by air, store shelves like this milk cooler
are empty until the weather clears, as volunteer Jacob Buckenmeyer
notes.

June 1:The ten
computers which control KNOM’s audio are old at the age of six.Today, the system irreparably fails.Its replacement is a sudden unexpected cost of $59,396.

(Left) One of the screens of the computer which takes care of
master control Studio A.

July:Volunteer Dave Dodman (left) signs up for a third year of full
time unpaid service to the mission.

It’s a
typical month:On the air,
you would hear discussions on topics such as law enforcement in the
Alaska bush, the difficulty for rural residents to obtain drivers
licenses and IDs, and many more.

Meanwhile (left)
work begins on a major repair to the studio building’s metal roof.Over the years, the brutal Nome wind has loosened most of its
sheet metal screws.Ace
repairman Dan Scholten performs the work.

August:Periods of
dense fog continue to plague Nome.Many flights from Anchorage overfly the town, and mail is delayed
one to two weeks.

September:After
more than six years of service to the mission, Amy Flaherty (left, by
the chilly summer Bering Sea) departs Nome for urban Alaska.

Throughout
her KNOM career, she has produced hundreds of interesting interviews,
educational and news programs, with a particular interest in Alaska
Native themes.

(Left) She’s been
in Alaska less than a week, but already, volunteer Danielle Sylvester is
hard at work.On the
western tip of Alaska, the mayor of Little Diomede points to his island
in the Bering Strait for Danielle, who has flown to the tiny village of
Wales to cover a Native dance festival.

October: (left)
KNOM receives the Gabriel Radio Station of the Year Award, among the top
broadcasting honors in the United States.Interestingly, KNOM is the only small-town station and the only
Catholic station, to be so honored.It is KNOM’s 17th top Gabriel, and its 13th in a row.

November:The
AlaskaBroadcasters
Association honors KNOM for Best Public Affairs Program and Best
Coverage of Breaking News.

November 26:Nome
sees its first blizzard of the winter.Thanksgiving dawns snowy and -10º.

November 30:
Bishop Donald Kettler confirms 12 teens in Nome’s St. Joseph Parish,
during a Mass broadcast by KNOM.Four of the youth are offspring of parents who first came to Nome
as KNOM volunteers.Their
teacher is former KNOM volunteer Linda Peters, RN.

Thank you
again, most sincerely for your assistance in keeping our mission work
alive.

We
offer to you our deep gratitude for your generous help and your prayers.We offer our own prayers that the New Year for you and those you
love will be greatly blessed.